In This Podcast:

Rajan Rajendran

Rajan Rajendran, newly appointed director of the Emerson Innovation Center, talks about the new $35 million facility and how it will function on the University of Dayton campus. Posted on Aug. 29.

Q: Could you tell us a little bit more about your role with Emerson Climate Technologies?

A: Emerson Climate Technologies is part of Emerson, a Fortune 500 company based in St. Louis. The Emerson parent company has five different business segments, including Emerson Climate Technologies. … I’m the vice president in charge of sustainability and regulatory activities as well as the newly announced innovation center.

Q: How did the idea for the Innovation Center come about?

A: There are many companies, universities, and nonprofit groups that have testing and research and development facilities everywhere. We are also part of that, as we have many different labs all over the world. We’re always looking for ways to integrate things in a holistic way, and we lacked a facility to do that. There are great ideas in air conditioning and refrigeration and transport, but they don’t necessarily come together to support each other or help each other in the effort of promoting better ideas. We wanted to find a different way to collaborate and look at systems outside of the traditional sense.

Q: What’s the focus of the activities to be performed at the innovation center?

A: This is a collaboration workspace. It will be different than what we’re used to in the industry. … It will be an open space where researchers, students, and faculty can come together to form teams and work on solutions in a very focused manner.

Rajan Rajendran
Vice president of engineering services and sustainability, Emerson Climate Technologies Inc.
www.emersonclimate.com

Click here to listen to the entire podcast.

Publication date: 9/22/2014 

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